The tournament will be held at the Upper School Campus of Harvard-Westlake School. (maps and directions)

Two students will qualify to the National Finals, which will be held on Thursday July 23-Sunday July 26, 2015 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California.

"The Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Debate Series is designed to develop proactive, informed, educated, and conscientious citizens and leaders by creating and hosting a national series of high school debates... This nonpartisan debate series will culminate in a National Championship, hosted on-site at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and will showcase the talents of top-ranked high school debaters from six diverse regions across the country."

Resolution for Qualifier

Resolved: “The United States federal government should provide affordable post-secondary education to its citizens.”

Prizes

Local Prizes
- Participants will receive $50.00 off the price of tuition for the debateLA Summer Program.
- Debaters who advance to the final four of the regional qualifier will received $150 off of the price of tuition for the debateLA Summer Program
- Any debater from any region who qualifies to the National Championship will receive 50% off tuition for the debateLA Summer Program.

Note: Debaters who qualify for the national tournament will need to be in Los Angeles for the National Championship. Harvard-Westlake will provide ground transportation from Harvard-Westlake to the National Championship in Simi Valley for debaters enrolled in debateLA.

Regional Championship Rules

Qualifications for the Regional Championship shall be determined by each school, home school consortium, or home study group. Each school, home school, or home study champion must then register for the Regional Championship in their region by the posted deadline in order to be eligible for competition.

Each student at the Regional Championship must be under the immediate supervision of an adult who may be his/her coach, parent, or other adult approved by the high school administration.

Entry fees and judging requirements shall be established by each Regional Competition partner in conjunction with the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Presidential Learning Center at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

A contestant who does not appear at the scheduled time to speak shall forfeit. The chief judge may waive this penalty for a valid and compelling reason.

Preliminary debates shall be judged by at least one judge; elimination rounds by three judges; and finals by 3-9 judges, at the discretion of the Regional Competition coordinator. The highest and lowest judges’ scores for each contestant in the final rounds will be eliminated before tabulating results. Any judge with a conflict of interest must declare this conflict prior to commencement of the competition, and a replacement judge should be assigned. *Rules are subject to change up until one week prior to the first Regional Competition.

Any student, in grades 9-12, during the 2014-2015 school year, who lives within the United States and is enrolled in an accredited U.S. high school, home school, or home study program is eligible to compete in the Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Debate Series.

LOCAL QUALIFIER RULES

In addition to the rules above, we have the following rules specific to this qualifier:

Students will register via this website. The fee is $40.00.*

Although students will register independently, permission must be given by the student's school to participate in the competition.

Students from the same school will be blocked from debating each other in rounds 1, 2 & 3, but may be paired against each other after that. Schools with significant entries may be asked to "split squads" to maintain equity in the pairings.

Any "coach-over" decisions must be given to the tabroom within 15 minutes of a pairing being released or the higher seed will be given the win.

If a student attends debate courses via a private tutoring company, please disclose that information on the registration form. (To maintain the rule about conflicts of interest, judges will not be able to judge students from the same company).

A judge must be provided for each entry. Judges should have some experience judging debate rounds. If you cannot provide a qualified judge, you may hire one from the tournament for $100.00.

Judges must stay two-rounds beyond the elimination of the debater she/he is covering. Leaving prior to fulfilling a commitment will result in a $200.00 fine.

Judges who miss a round for which they are scheduled will be fined $80.00.

Judges must use Tabroom.com for ballot entry. We will send out instructions on using Tabroom.com prior to the tournament. Pairings will be released to judges and debaters via email and SMS. Judges should bring a mobile device with a web-browser. We will have a very limited number of ballot-entry stations available.

Pairing procedures will be made public by April 18, 2015.

The tournament may modify rules up to April 18, 2015.

PAYMENT

Payments should be made to Harvard-Westlake School. In the memo line please indicate the name of the competitor.